22 CAPTAIN TUCKEY'S NARRATIVE. 



tion of the spring at San Felippe, I did not meet a drop 

 of running water, and all the annual plants were so burnt 

 up as to be reducible to powder between the fingers. The 

 onlj trees seen here are a few jnelancholy dates, useful only 

 by their branches, as their fruit does not come to perfec- 

 tion ; and some thinly scattered mimosas, serving only to 

 render the general nakedness more apparent. The lesser 

 vegetation consists of about a dozen shrubs, on which, as 

 Avell as the mimosa, the goats browse, and some herbaceous 

 plants, particularly a convolvolus, which covers the most 

 sandy spots, a solanum, a lotus, an aloe, &c. 



Professor Smith and Mr. Tudor, who employed the 

 whole of our short stay here in a botanizing excursion to 

 the mountains, describe the interior of the island as more 

 pleasing than the sea shores. The valleys, as they ascended 

 from the inferior region, being well watered by springs 

 forming little brooks, and covered with plantations of fruits 

 and vegetables ; the hills well clothed with grass, affording 

 pasture to numerous herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. 

 The result of Dr. Smith's botanical researches is thus stated 

 by him.* " The Cape de Verde islands, though situated 



* It may be necessary to observe, that though Dr. Smith understands and 

 speaks the English language with great correctness, he, as may be expected in a 

 foreigner, does not write it with equal facility, hence I have been obliged to 

 put the wTitten observations he has furnished me with into a more correct form 

 as to 7nanner, the matter being eatirely his own. 



